Royal Navy officer cadets and sub-lieutenants joined the regular ship’s company of patrol boat HMS Example for a six-week deployment which will take students to Hamburg and back.
The P2000 has begun her Easter deployment, giving undergraduates from Northumbria Universities an extended insight into life in the Royal Navy.
When students are aboard there are no overnight passages – so no direct route from the Tyne to the Elbe.
Instead, Example must hop from port to port each day, first down the east coast of England as far as Ramsgate, then over the Channel to Dunkirk, where she’ll join forces with sister HMS Explorer, and along Europe’s north-western seaboard via some of the continent’s great ports and cities – Bruges, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Emden, Heligoland – and the Elbe estuary leading to Hamburg.
Leg one covered Example’s base at HMS Calliope on the Tyne to the picturesque fishing port of Captain Cook and Dracula fame.
For many officer cadets, this will be their first time on board a ship, meaning they will have a steep learning curve ahead of them.
The first day involved getting to grips with life aboard Example, with many of the cadets feeling as though they were in over their heads.
“At the start of the day I felt as though I was a rabbit in headlights, but as the day went on I felt more confident as the crew showed me the ropes – literally,” said Sam Powell , a Defence Technical Undergraduate Scheme cadet.
The crew and officers provided basic training to the cadets, helping them to settle in.
“The first couple of days are when the students learn the most about Naval life, learning to live in a messdeck with others and adhere to the ship’s routine and their own watchbills [rosters],” said HMS Example’s Commanding Officer Lieutenant Thomas Stapley-Bunten .